~ * ~
‘Look, Susan, the clinic,’ Jenny called. ‘We’re here!’
Susan stumbled after her, and the long, low building appeared around the bend. From the open doors, its ill and injured queue extended far down the path; Jenny and Susan took their place behind a young pregnant woman in threadbare jeans. There were few civilians among the camouflage, and no other women.
‘Queue very long lah,’ the woman said in broken accent; ‘long time to wait.’
Citing lack of time, energy, commitment, and the unacceptable number of female contributors, I do hereby tender my resignation. I suspect I will from time to time post something as a guest, but I will no longer make regular contributions. I hope you will all remember me, and that you will continue your wonderful writing without my support. Anyway, I found something that seemed apropos, so this will be my last contribution. It is, again, written in tetrameter, which I am beginning to realize is somewhat constrained, as some of you have pointed out, but such as it is:
Song of the Prodigal
I wish to sin, for I am sin,
so have me sin against you, Lord
and let me sin again, again,
though I know that it is absurd.
Lord, I must sin, and sin again,
for only then do I know good
from evil; let me sin, and sin,
until you drown me in the flood.
And while I sin, yet let me sin
still stronger than I sinned before
and have me freeze my heart, and then
incinerate me in the fire.
Lord, I am lost in sin; so then
remove from me my first birthright
and know me not, for I do sin
against your kingdom’s heav’nly state.
“Once a thief, forever a thief.” “A man like you can never change.” “My duty’s to the Law, you have no rights.”
This is the philosophy of Javert, Head of Police, in Paris, 1815. He is one of the main characters in Victor Hugo’s novel and the Broadway musical, Les Miserables. Javert spends the entire play hunting for a convict — Valjean — who broke his parole. At the beginning of the play, a Bishop covers for Valjean’s first crime out of jail, which changes Valjean’s entire worldview. Throughout the play, Valjean offers mercy and forgiveness to different people — a concept which Javert is at a loss to understand. Javert’s steadfastness in his worldview causes him to take his own life after Valjean extends mercy to him. “How can I now allow this man to hold dominion over me? This desperate man whom I have hunted — I should have perished by his hand. It was his right. It was my right to die as well: instead, I live, but live in Hell.” These are the lines Javert sings before he takes his life, showing his confusion and life philosophy clearly.
In every lecture on Christian history, practically the first question to arise concerns persecution. Why would people convert to Christianity in the face of dire hatred and gruesome punishments? Purely from a human perspective, persecution must have been an enormous barrier to the gospel. Given this, how could the early church expand as greatly it eventually did?
The typical explanation is that the persecution itself was not evenly enforced, or not rigorously enforced, especially by governors, for instance, who were sympathetic to the new movement. Even besides this, most governors presumably had other stuff to do besides specifically persecuting this group. Unlike Hitler, for whom the Jews were a kind of obsession, Nero was not devoted to exterminating Christians. They just kind of annoyed him.
P. James McCord writes,
blank page
virgin-pure, unseeded, fallow
too much peril to disturb
the empty, soft, and truthless-
best to leave it
toothless
A friend was bemoaning the lack of hymns about the promised resurrection of the body. So, I sat down tonight and wrote one. It probably needs a little tweaking, particularly in the second verse, but I needed to get a post up today– so, perhaps you shall see a better version in the future.
The meter is CMD (common meter doubled) and for now, it can be sung to the tune Ellacombe.
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Scenario one: A 9 year old girl is kidnapped by a gang in a South American country. A member of the gang is captured by the police, and believed to know the whereabouts of the girl. The only possible way to make him talk is by torture, and if he talks, the police will probably save the girl’s life. In this case, torture would save someone’s life, and the member of the gang is hardly innocent. Besides, it would be an equal level – a life for a life, so to speak, so surely torturing the gang member would be okay.
As I stared up into the sterile light and felt the slipperiness of pale bluish-green rubber on my lips and the scratch of instruments of dental torture on my teeth, it occurred to me, Hey. Today is my day to post on the PAN. I thought I should use the opportunity of my captivity to dream up the most intelligent and provoking post yet to grace the blog. Unfortunately, as the nice lady jabbed my gums, all I could think of was “Pain is Gain”.
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Videmus nunc
per speculum
in enigmate.
~ * ~
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, and been scraped to the edges of the narrow hairpin roads, where passing tyres had sprayed it with mud. Susan lay still, staring up at the drab sky: that is, she lay still as far as it depended on her, but with every pothole, the ridges in the back of the lorry jolted up into her side, nearly tossing her into the air. If the force of friction—what was it? some coefficient, and her weight, though that was slight—became less than the force of the moving lorry, she would shortly be lying in the road, but the physics textbook was too distant a memory, her data too scarce, and her headache too strong to calculate exactly when she should begin to worry. Besides, she had many other reasons for concern.
Here is a pretty little poem I wrote, actually a few years back. But I needed material in a pinch, so I reached into the vault. Enjoy.
Fashioned Flame
Tossed, turned, dript, far-flung, and thrown –
A fire-wrought dome of burnished grace finds wide
Mystical turning, surface eternal untried
By corporeal hands, nor to low mankind shown.
But silent roarings, moans of floating seraphs
Fill hollowed, quiet, sunless, gleaming air.
Swiftly approaching, goading pale prayer
To awe, a chariot and priestly staffs;
One crowned, who flashes bright–unapproachable eyes
Pierce dome of flame, and find in the orb at length
No flaw in the terrible beauty, nor in strength,
And multifoliate rose breathes love, not dies.
At last remains the awful love whereby
Spin supple-silver starlights, and planets fly.
